Another day of relatively light news regarding Gov.-elect Chris Christie’s transition into office.

My Home News Tribune colleague, Sergio Bichao, who covered Christie’s walk through downtown Woodbridge today, said the Republican announced that his brother, Todd, and advisor William J. Palatucci will co-chair the inaugural committee to “organize different events surrounding the inaugural.”

[1]Palatucci, 51, of Westfield, is senior vice president and general counsel for public affairs at Community Education Centers, which provides offender reentry and in-prison treatment services. Before joining its staff, he represented the company for 15+ years as outside counsel and lobbyist while a partner at the law Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci, where Christie once also once a partner.

[2]Todd Christie, 45, of Mendham, is a managing member of Morristown-based Big Blue Trading LLC. He and Palatucci attended the Republican National Convention together in 2008, in a sense standing in for Christie’s brother, who at the time was U.S. Attorney and not supposed to take part in partisan politics. He has made more than $401,000 in contributions to state candidates and committees since 2001 and some $500,000 in federal contributions — including, by the way, donations to Democrats Max Cleland and John Kerry. On top of that, his $200,000 donation to the Republican Governors Association this fall was attacked by independent Chris Daggett after the RGA began running ads attacking his tax proposals.

Todd Christie also played an unsought role in the recent campaign. He was one of 20 traders accused of improper trading in a stock fraud investigation in New York but wound up being one of five not charged criminally; his company, Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, paid a civil penalty of $16.5 million. The lead investigator from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, David Kelley, was selected two years later by Chris Christie, then the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, to oversee an out-of-court settlement with five medical device manufacturers implicated in a doctor kickback scheme.

In his election night speech, Christie condemned the political attacks on his family.

“In February when I announced for governor, I said I knew this campaign would get into the gutter, and that I would not follow my opponents into that gutter. And I told you then I did not know whether that was a winning strategy or a losing strategy, but I told you it was my strategy — that I had worked too hard over my life to give away my integrity for any job, not even this one.

“Let me tell you this: Through their overwhelming support tonight, the people of New Jersey said, ‘No more negative personal campaigns.’ In the face of a $30 million onslaught that consisted almost exclusively of a negative personal campaign against me, my family and my friends, the people of New Jersey decided enough is enough.”